So Very Blessed

I love the conference address by by President Henry B. Eyring entitled, “O Remember, Remember.” You may recall what he shared in his address. He spoke of a journal he kept during the years when his children were young. He was prompted to start this journal after his father-in-law had performed an act of service for his family. The spirit spoke to him saying, “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.” He was supposed to record for his children to read, someday in the future, how he had seen the hand of God blessing their family. You can find the address at www.lds.org or in your next Ensign. It is an excellent article. I am glad that I had opportunity to record a special miracle in my life last week. Read on... to see my written record. Consider yourself "tagged" if you want to and after reading this post, either list some blessings or miracles that you have received and share them on your blog or with your family.

Last week my mother called to ask a favor of me. She had a Relief Society assignment to share an experience where either she or a member of her family had experienced a miracle. She told me that the first family miracle that came to her mind was an experience that had happened to me. My mother asked if I would write about this experience and then send it to her so that she could share it with her ward sisters. She went on to say that she just didn’t feel like she had any “big” miracles to share. This saddened me. Our Heavenly Father would never desire for us to compare our blessings and miracles with those that others receive. He would not want us to feel like our miracles were not “big” enough. Our conversation continued and I went on to list the blessings and miracles that I could see in my mother’s life. By the end of our phone call, she had to agree that our Heavenly Father had blessed her in many ways. Still I went ahead and prepared a one page entry about this miracle in my life and emailed it to my mother so that she could share it. This is the entry:

The Miracle of Motherhood
By Tiffany Bodily (written Oct. 30, 07)

I was married to Clayne in September of 1989 and not long afterwards we decided to start our family. Little did we know what was in store for us. We struggled through many years of infertility, doctor visits, and treatments, all to no avail. We spent many hours on our knees in prayer pleading with our Heavenly Father to send us children.

We felt impressed to pursue adoption through LDS Social Services while we continued our infertility treatments, to see what would work out first – adoption or pregnancy. In 1995 we were blessed to adopt a baby girl, Cheyenne, followed by an additional adoption of a baby boy, Morgan, in 1998. We were busy and happy parents and felt so blessed to have been fortunate to adopt two healthy newborns and to have an opportunity to raise both a daughter and a son.

At this point we decided we could be content if these two children were all that we ever received. We were no longer seeking medical treatments for our infertility and had decided that it was probably unlikely that I would ever conceive and bear a child through my own body. I made peace with this and we were happy.

Our Heavenly Father surprised us when Morgan was only 4 months old. It was then that I found out that I was pregnant. It was hard for me to truly believe this after almost 10 years of marriage. In all those years I had never been pregnant and so this was certainly a miracle to both Clayne and I, to our families, and everyone who knew us.

I was blessed to be able to conceive again and give birth to a beautiful daughter, Savannah, just 3 years after Carson. Yet another blessing I experienced was that I never experienced morning sickness with either of my pregnancies. Watching friends go through morning sickness taught me gratitude for this blessing. I feel so very blessed to have been the recipient of many wonderful blessings and miracles in my life. In my opinion every blessing is a miracle and every miracle is a blessing. These two precepts of the gospel work hand in hand.

What a blessing it has been for us to be given the opportunity to adopt two healthy children and to also experience the pregnancy and birth of two healthy children. To me the means by which each of my children came into our lives is a miracle. Not one of the experiences overshadows the other. I know that my Heavenly Father meant for each one of these children to be raised by Clayne and I. I know that they came into the world and into our lives in just the way that Heavenly Father saw as best. I am so grateful to him for his love and for the growth I experienced through our trial of infertility. Although there were times when I didn’t understand, it all makes perfect sense to me now and I wouldn’t change a thing.